Slashdot Mirror
Fighting RIAA Without an Attorney
2think writes "Yahoo News is reporting that Patricia Santangelo of New York will be taking on the RIAA in court without an attorney. It seems that Ms. Santangelo has committed over $24,000 due to her case and simply cannot afford to continue with the services of an attorney." From the article: "Her former lawyer, Ray Beckerman, says Santangelo doesn't really need him. 'I'm sure she's going to win,' he said. 'I don't see how they could win. They have no case. They have no evidence she ever did anything. They don't know how the files appeared on her computer or who put them there.'"
In a serious vein, if she wins it will set precedent and give hope to others that can't afford a lawyer.
The Mothership
I'm guessing the RIAA will drop the case anyway and try to find someone with a bit more cash on hand next time. She's flat broke, what use is she to them now? Wait, this is supposed to be about justice? My bad...
Vandemar.org
If they have no case hopefully she will be able to get back the money she has spent on lawyer fees. My concern is that she may lose and her case may create some sort of precedent. The only way she could lose a case like this is representing herself.
'I'm sure she's going to win,' he said. 'I don't see how they could win.
Well, I don't know. Maybe her lawyer could stop defending her. Then they might win.
"Gee, judge, I have no idea how the cocaine got in my suitcase or who put it there. Can I leave now?"
That's her defense. Good luck, Patricia. Yer gonna needit.
While the RIAA may have the law on its side to pursue these cases, is it truly just to file blind lawsuits in this manner. If they believe that everyone who buys a PC must know how to adequately secure it from external and internal users, doesn't it then stand to reason that it should be suing the OS and hardware companies who sell their products in a completely unsecured state? Or shouldn't the RIAA work with these companies to make their products secure out of the box ?
Why is it the responsibility of this woman to become a security expert in order to benefit the RIAA ?
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
How and why is downloading something illegal? Wouldn't distribution be illegal because it's copyright infringement? But how or why is downloading be illegal?
Isn't that just an extension of freedom of speech? The freedom to listen/watch?
Is listening to someone, who didn't pay the RIAA, sing the copyrighted song Happy Birthday illegal? Or is flipping through a stack of unpublished/unlicensed photos illegal?
Is it because there's a copy of something on the computer? Would streaming be more legal?
I want to know what law is being broken. I looked this up in the internet and still have no definite answer. I simply need to know.
I guess civil, otherwise she could just get a lawyer assigned to her.
And will there be a jury?
I don't think any jury would be willing to convict her. Which would set a nice precedent.
The music industry is shooting themselves in the foot, once again, with these lawsuits. Conceivably, many of the people being targeted in these lawsuits are using versions of Kazaa/Limewire/iMesh for which they have paid. The more computer-illiterate among them don't know the difference between paying for an ad-free program and paying for music.
As an on-site computer technician, I've talked with many parents who didn't understand they were still taking a risk by letting their children download from Limewire Pro. They think since they paid for the program, they have paid for the music. They don't under the difference between peer-to-peer programs and legitimate music download services.
I often think that the RIAA is going to turn many novice computer users off from online purchasing altogether because they are going after the unsophisticated user who doesn't understand copyright and what constitutes a legitimate channel and what does not. If they really want to stop online piracy, they need to go after the makers of the software, not the poor people they duped into believing that they had "purchased" music.
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
And we all have an interest in her winning.
Where can I make a donation to her legal defense fund?
And why has the EFF not taken up the case?
Reality has a liberal bias
Except that, on the net, this really does happen. People take over other's computers all the time, to host porn sites, warez sites, to use them as hops/storage on the way to another computer, and for all sorts of other crap. There's really no reason to assume that someone is guilty for having files on their computer with the net as it is today, and security as it is today.
How do they know what is on her computer? Did they raid her house for a civil suit, or do they have some sort of remote monitoring software?
I just want to know - how does the RIAA know that those files were on her computer?
They may have a civil case against her - but I wonder if she has a criminal case against whoever searched her computer?
Unlike drugs, or kiddy porn where the mere possession is a crime, copyright infringement is only a tort if it can be proven that you transferred the files to someone else. In any event, it's very possible that her box could have been a zombie, rooted by some bored teenager looking to file share without risk.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
This is something most people don't get, and it's a misconception the RIAA/MPAA push as much as possible when they go on about "illegal downloads". They've gone way past the limits on *distribution* that copyright imposes, and they'd like to attack your right to watch and listen to the speech of others at its very core. Their business model can't easily coexist with basic human freedom in the digital age, just as many moguls and kings in the agricultural age couldn't get by without slavery; after all, didn't their incomes depend on it?
To understand the blatantly false statements the RIAA and their shills love to make, you have to see through their numerous incorrect premises:
1. Copying and sharing, the basis of all human culture and advancement, are somehow heinous crimes in the digital age.
2. Seeing something is the same as doing something.
3. The US's laws apply to everyone in the world, and are superior to every other law.
4. Legality is more important than morality.
5. Your property belongs to some corporation instead of to you.
6. Creativity cannot exist without cartels and monopolies.
7. Guaranteed profits are better than freedom.
Every person who advocates for the RIAA and punishing downloaders falls for one or more of these errors. Reject these, and you see the RIAA's legal tactics for what they are: criminal extortion and racketeering. Now that the RIAA gets to teach these awful anti-values to elementary students, however, the future of freedom is in serious jeopardy.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
They're her kids too, and she's responsible for what they do as well. Have you people ever heard of "rationalization"? I'm as crooked as many of you, but at least I admit it....
Nonsense, Judges read briefs from normal folks when they represent themselves in the US and the UK. Remeber that in September 1990, McDonald's sued Dave Morris and Helen Steel, activists with London Greenpeace, for producing and distributing a leaflet titled "What's Wrong With McDonald's." McDonalds went after them, they represented themselves and it went around and around but they won.
1 705.cfm
http://www.organicconsumers.org/politics/mclibel2
Furthermore, in the United States, you have a Right to self representation, any Judge who would refuse to read a brief from someone self representing would be overturned on appeal, something no Judge wants.
More recently, the Supreme Court has expounded the right to represent oneself, holding first in Faretta v. California 422 U.S. 806 (1975) that the power to choose or waive council lies with the accused, and the state can not intrude, even as it later held Gidinez v. Moran, 509 U.S. 389 (1993) if the state believed the accused less than fully competant to adequately proceed without council.
The circuit courts have narrowed the right to exclude appeal procedures as in Martinez v. California Court of Appeals 528 U.S. 152, 163 (2000), and again by reference in US v. Moussaoui (4th Cir. 2003) (No. 03-4162); however, this restriction is new, inconsistent with precedent, and has yet to be tested in the Supreme Court.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Agreed that she should have a lawyer. Gotta call bullshit on "They have her IP Address. She did it." We know the former, but only speculate about the latter. Sounds like, "The police wouldn't have arrested 'em if they hadn't done it."
To understand the blatantly false statements the RIAA and their shills love to make, you have to see through their numerous incorrect premises:
:) (that ethics are more important than legal technicalities.) But if you're suggesting that copyright is unethical, I disagree.
Actually, several of premises are actually false, or are putting words in the RIAA's mouth.
1. Copying and sharing, the basis of all human culture and advancement, are somehow heinous crimes in the digital age.
No one ever said copying and sharing are heinous crimes. Unauthorized copying and sharing of copyright materials is against the law (copyright infringement isn't a criminal act, but it can get you sued).
2. Seeing something is the same as doing something.
I'm not sure what you meant, so I can't refute it. Please elaborate.
3. The US's laws apply to everyone in the world, and are superior to every other law.
Within the United States, copyright infringement is most certainly against the law; in fact, Congress is explicitly given authority in the Constitution (Article I, Section 8) to make copyright laws. While the US Constitution obviously has no authority outside the US, copyright is virtually universal through international treaties and most (all?) countries have their own copyright laws.
4. Legality is more important than morality.
I agree with you
5. Your property belongs to some corporation instead of to you.
Actually, in the world of copyright, this is often true. If you buy a copyrighted CD, you do not fully own the material. The copyright owner still owns the copyright to the CD; you own a license to it. When you buy the CD you don't "own" the music; you are, in a sense, leasing it from the copyright owner. Even Richard Stallman, who appears to deeply dislike the *intention* of copyright (I know, the GPL is enforced through copyright; I mean copyright's intention of restricting redistribution) has said this (though in the context of software, not music).
6. Creativity cannot exist without cartels and monopolies.
I don't know of anyone who is saying this. It's just as easy for you to copyright your own work as it is for a large company. But given the context here, I'm not sure what's so "creative" about copyright infringement.
7. Guaranteed profits are better than freedom.
Profits are rarely, if ever, guaranteed, but your wording is rather misleading. You're trying to appeal to the hatred of the faceless CEO and his corporation by contrasting it with the word "freedom." By "freedom," you really mean "the right to freely redistribute copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder." By "guaranteed profits," you certainly mean the RIAA making money through selling music (even though most Slashdotters argue that consumers wouldn't buy many of the CDs they pirate, so that means these profits are hardly "guaranteed"), but the profits could just as well be a small software company selling its copyrighted program and making enough money to stay in business, or a fledgling artist scraping together a living.
In any case, when an individual buys copyrighted material, he is fully aware that he does not have the right to redistribute it; if he doesn't want to be under such restrictions, he is perfectly free to decline to buy it. If I sign a contract with you to clean your toilet every Saturday in exchange for some "guaranteed profits," I am fully aware of the fact that I'm giving up the freedom to do something I'd much rather do on Saturday. But perhaps I can't find any other job, and having the "guaranteed profits" minus my "freedom" on Saturday sounds more appealing than starving.
If you do not oppose the existence of copyright, I apologize for putting words in your mouth (I did so because several of your statements seem to imply that you do oppose it). I most certainly don't defend ever
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of this theorem that this sig is too small to contain.
If they really want to stop online piracy, they need to go after the makers of the software, not the poor people they duped into believing that they had "purchased" music.
Filesharing software can also be used for legal downloading, and if the RIAA can punish the authors of file sharing software because users used the software illegally, that's very dangerous (of course, such episodes have already played out in the courts). As far as I know, these software makers never say that their software's license includes the cost of music licenses. If they did, that would be false advertisement. Unless that's happening users should be held accountable for how they use software, not the authors of the software.
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of this theorem that this sig is too small to contain.
The European Court ruled on appeal that the UK government was wrong to deny legal aid to Morris and Steel because McDonalds then had the power in the case completely shifted in their direction (for those who do not know, in the French slogan "liberté,égalité,fraternité", the "égalité" bit means that the law applies equally to everybody, and this is a principle of European law.)It would be interesting to know if the US constitution could be so interpreted, so that a corporation with effectively limitless access to money and representation could not use this to roll over the rights to a fair trial of somebody without that much money. If not, then then the US would be technically a fascist state, i.e. one in which the Government colluded with unelected corporations. This is where we need some rulings from genuinely conservative judges like the one in the Pennsylvania ID case.
Pining for the fjords
Judges simply do not read briefs unless they are written by lawyers.
I call BS. I can testify that this is not the case. I personally kicked a lawyer's butt in court. My motions were read, and granted. Both at the Federal District level and at the Appeals level. I did concede to the 'caste' system when the Court asked for 'formal' briefs (effectively, making oral argument unnecessary, which was to my advantage). But before that, I filed several motions and won all of them.
Now, granted, the person who sued me was a net.kook, but he had a real lawyer who was known for playing the system. That concerned me, of course, but I followed the rules to the letter. And I won.
Let's be clear - this was a no-brainer, since there were jurisdictional problems (the net.kook sued me in North Carolina State Court, and I live in Illinois, and have no contacts with North Carolina). The key was, I made absolutely sure I followed the court's rules, looked at sample pleadings, wrote my own stuff. And won.
One major caveat - I would never do this in a criminal case. Way too many pitfalls, traps, etc, that one could fall into. And that's where you need the lawyer - they know the system and the rules (or at least they are supposed to). Hopefully, though, I'll never be in THAT position.
There are court documents on her case here (as well as other cases):
/
http://www.recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com
[ ]Clever sig [X]Lame sig
when was it proclamed that an *.mp3==cd track?
thats like telling me my copy of ice harvest (a bt download)recorded with a camcorder at a movie theater==the DVD.
Serenity now, insanity later.
When I was a kid, growing up in the 1970's, I bought and listened to records. My friends and I would sometimes loan our records to each other so that we could 'share the love' - records weren't cheap, and sometimes it just didn't make sense for several of us to own the same title. Sometimes we took it a step further, and made a cassette tape of a record.. and shared it around that way. But in the end, the 'real music' was the record itself, not the copy on the cassette.
Sometime in the early 1980's, I (well, may of us) got duped into buying CDs. Perfect sound, now and forever we were told. I sold my records and my collection of CDs grew, but for some reason, by the mid 90's I'd stopped buying and listening to my CDs. I was doing a lot less music listening in general, but when I was listening, it was to tapes of my old records and mix tapes / tapes of CDs that were floating around. At the time, I just assumed it was the natural progression and change of interests in my life, and life went on.
Then something amazing happened. I struck up a friendship with a guy ten years my senior, who was a big vinyl junkie and in possession of some very trick analog gear - turntable, tube amps, etc. I was frigging blown away! From the first time the needle hit 'Zombie' by the Cranberries, I was sold. The reason I wasn't listening to my CDs, is that they sounded like shit, and I'd been duped by the Digital hype. The folly of my ways was apparent, and I immediately went out and sold all my CDs, and bought a turntable - as well as a simple little tube amp - and I was in heaven. Today, my LP collection is over a thousand titles and growing, and the music just keeps on playing.
So what's the point of this boring backstory? It's this: Digital media, at least music, is a joke. It's not real, and it doesn't even sound like it. CD playback has gotten a lot better, and I don't begrudge someone for buying a new CD - especially if there is no vinyl release. But the idea of paying actual money for a crappy sounding compressed version (MP3) of an already crappy sounding CD is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard of. These $0.99 music downloads are completely worthless, and the record companies / RIAA know that. Not only are you getting a poor replica of a music track, but it's totally without any tangible value. You're just one hard disk crash away from losing every song you ever bought - but never really received.
Sorry for the chiche, but the emperor really has no clothes - the entire business model of selling songs for download is nothing more than that - a model of business; a marketing breakthrough. And when you are selling worthless products on a large scale, you'd better be carrying a damn big stick. Or carrying a bunch of lawyers, who themselves have big sticks.. possibly with nails through them.
Thanks for your time, and my regrets if this wandered off-topic. I think you get my point.
There's a Starman, waiting in the sky / He'd like to come and meet us, but he hasn't got the time.
....has a fool for a client. (Attorneys excepted.)
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
Something like this:
Where are the FACTS? "Santangelo says she has never downloaded a single song on her computer..." Was she accused of DOWNLOADING SONGS, or was she accused of sharing i.e. DISSIMINATING copyrighted material? Why is reporting on these cases so SLOPPY and imprecise? If a reporter was this sloppy in Iraq (were the troops under fire, or were they firing?) someone would get fired.
There are a lot of falsehoods and misleading information being reported about this case. A full set of court documents is available; scroll down to "Elektra v. Santangelo".
First, Ms. Santangelo is not being charged with just downloading. The complaint actually says that Ms. Santangelo used Kazaa "to download the Copyrighted Recordings, to distribute the Copyrighted Recordings to the public, and/or to make the Copyrighted Recordings available for distribution to others." As evidence for this charge they present a series of screen shots of Kazaa showing an account that is offering thousands of songs available for upload. Their claim is that this account corresponds to Ms. Santangelo's computer, although no evidence for that has been presented yet at this stage of the proceedings.
They did not inspect Ms. Santangelo's computer, which supposedly is in her ex-husband's possession and has had the disk wiped due to virus infections. They got the data from Kazaa by looking at the files which were (supposedly) being offered by her computer for upload.
So this is not a case of "downloading", it is a case of downloading and/or offering to upload. If that account actually does correspond to Ms. Santangelo's computer, the simplest explanation is that her kids were doing it, and she is responsible for their actions.
Even if it is the kids' friend, it's unlikely that he downloaded thousands of songs onto their computer without the kids knowing it. And even if he did, Ms. Santangelo could still be liable herself, and then she would have to sue the friend to recover damages on her own. In other words, she would owe millions of dollars to the RIAA, and then she would sue the friend for millions to cover her debts. But the RIAA would not depend on her success in suing the friend.
In short, instead of paying a few thousand to settle this and make it go away (and punishing the kids for getting the family into this mess), she is now out many times that already, and is likely to end up owing an astronomical sum. Her only recourse will be to declare bankruptcy.
There are two lessons from this. The first is that parents ought to keep better track of what their kids (and their kids' friends) are doing on the family computer. But the deeper lesson is that even with cases like this in the press, the odds are still so much against any given person being caught that most parents still don't worry about it. Unless or until we reach the point where most people have personal friends who have been sued, or at least friends of friends, nobody is going to take these threats seriously. At this point it's still like being struck by lightning or killed by bears, a theoretical threat that is so abstract and rare that few people take it seriously.
The problem is many judges don't know what an ip address is. If an "expert" gives a definition of an ip address and how one is obtained and its not brought up about how easy it is to spoof one, she will lose.
She needs an "expert" of her own. Anyone with network security experience that the court will accept as an expert.
Hell i have a "secure" wireless access point in my apartment. I changed the password, turned on WPA2 personal, mac address limiting, and told it not to announce itself. It could still be cracked by a neighbor and used for downloads. Until the general public accepts that wireless is insecure, the RIAA has a real chance in court. Heck isps can get hacked too. I used to work for one awhile back. During my 2.5 years there, we had our dns server rooted 5 times and our mail and web servers each rooted once. Of course running bind 4 in 2000 was stupid in itself. We had spammers and people attacking other servers. One time they even replaced the ps command so we couldn't see their programs running. My old boss is living proof that an idiot setting up linux is a bad thing. At the time I ran the windows servers which did not get rooted because i was psycho about patching and disabling everything.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
Ouch!
mitch
This is correct, but it's not the only reason.
The legal system functions like a club. Even if you're fully aware of your rights and the laws, if you're not in the club, you will grossly mistreated no matter how right you are, and when all is said and done, you'll end up screwed.
When I was a broke college student, I tried to represent myself in court one time against a minor offense I was accused of. I thought it was going to be open-and-shut, with me being the beneficiary of our fine system of justice. I had incontrovertible proof that I was 100% right. (Incontrovertible proof in the "photographic evidence" sense, before the days of digital cameras and desktop photo editing.) I was up against an assistant prosecutor who was obviously trying to get a promotion (aren't we all, right?) and two police officers who flat-out lied on the witness stand. (Again, I had incontrovertible photographic evidence that they lied.)
While I was testifying, the prosecutor objected to my pictures because she hadn't seen them. (I'm sorry, since when does the prosecution have the right of discovery?) The judge cut me off while I was questioning one of the officers about how he knew where I was at a particular time (which was the crux of the case against me) because it was "irrelevant." Before the case, the judge told me that I was not entitled to a jury trial, and after the case, when the judge said, "Guilty," she literally leaned over the bench as I was walking by and said under earshot of everyone else in the room (including the court reporter), "You know, you never really had a chance."
I saw the prosecutor a little later, and she said, "You can appeal if you want to, but they never overturn these cases, and it will cost you thousands of dollars. You should just pay the fine and be done with it."
If I had money backing me and a lawyer with me in the room, I'm 100% sure it would have been a totally different story, and I'll never set foot in a courtroom (or a police station, for that matter) without a lawyer representing me. Not because I think they're particularly smart or because I don't think they're scummy like everyone else does. In my estimation, the vast majority of them are not providing a valuable service, they're just bottom scrapers who leech off benefits from a crooked system.
Needless to say, I have a very grim view of our (lack-of-) justice system to this day. While most people are so worked up about how a miniscule number of guilty people walk free because of it, I'm much more concerned about the opposite problem, which is how many innocent people get screwed by a system that is geared to find everyone guilty regardless of the truth, and how many people get extorted by this stupid system. Now, whenever I hear of someone who's been accused of a crime, especially a poor person, who pleads not guilty and is convicted, I keep a much more open mind to their situation. I'm just glad that I found out how it works on, as I said, a minor offense that ended with a fine, and not something serious.
Thanks, Judge Nancy Campbell of Cobb County, Georgia. I used to have a lot of respect for the law and for judges. I really appreciate you showing me just how naïve I truly was.